Seismic and gas monitoring of volcanic sites

Abstract

Geophysical and geochemical monitoring of volcanic areas have a notable impact for the assessment of the geological instability and for safety of the populations. Nowadays the low cost Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) devices and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) could represent a good way to perform a real-time monitoring task. In this paper a customized wireless multi-sensor architecture is presented, suitable for the implementation of a distributed monitoring system of geophysical and geochemical quantities within volcanic areas. The idea behind the proposed solution is the use of a “Smart Dust” approach, consisting in the spread of low cost devices over the while inspected area. In particular, the sensor node proposed is equipped with two Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) devices, a triaxial accelerometer and a CO2 sensor, and a novel low cost inkjet printed CO2 sensor. A microcontroller platform and a ZigBee communication tool have been adopted to allow a context-adaptive architecture by selecting different operating modes.